You're Such a Line to Break
by Wofl
Summary: Sam learns exactly how much he needs his brother. But not before fighting some really strange creatures. PG13. Angst. Deathfic. Samcentric. Gen.


The demon gives Dean a year. Dean lasts two months before his reckless lack of self-preservation cuts him down.

The last thing he hears before his eyes slip shut for good is Sam calling him a bastard, cursing his name, crying. _Sorry Sammy_, he has time to think - no time to say - and then black black and nothing.

--

Sam hears whispers, sometimes. It starts maybe two weeks after Dean bleeds out and goes still in his arms. Throat slashed, and it was like a nightmare. He's dreamed of it so many times before; not that scenario specifically - there had been no visions to warn him of this - but of Dean dying. Damn him, _damn him,_ he was supposed to let Sam save him.

Two weeks and there are no tears left to cry. Two weeks and he's so numb, so lost and _God,_ was this how Dean had felt? Sam isn't angry at Dean anymore. Sam's thinking about doing exactly the same thing for Dean.

Dean would never forgive him. There's no guarantee that Dean wouldn't drop dead again in a year anyways. Dean's smile, his voice, every infuriating habit Sam ever hated.

Sam really only has a few thoughts these days and most of them have to do with bargains and crossroads.

Then the whispers start. Just soft breaths in otherwise dead air, at first; so subtle, Sam doesn't notice them. And then days pass and it's a steady murmur in his head. He starts to notice things. Objects mysteriously appear in different locations than where they'd been left, the curtains flutter, the door creaks.

Sam's too numb to care, at first. He doesn't even have the energy to be curious anymore. It's as if all the light has gone out of life, and all that's left is to wait it out out of respect of his brother's wishes.

It hadn't been like this with Jess. Or maybe it had, but the difference is, there's no one there this time, to bully him into eating, acting like a normal person. There's no one to be angry at, except Dean's own stupidity. There's no reason to fake it anymore. Sam slips further away, and the hurt doesn't ease.

When he can't stand his own stench anymore, he drags himself to the bathroom and climbs into the shower. How long has it been? Days? Weeks? It might be the most difficult thing he's ever done, and the water scalds his skin.

When he gets out, there's a message written on the mirror. Sam's heart breaks again, which is funny, because he's fairly sure it had already been turned to powder. Turns out there's still room for further pain in his already aching chest.

_Still here, Little Brother_

Dean's handwriting.

Beneath the hurt, there's something that glimmers like hope.

Two days later, Sam notices, for the first time, that he is hungry. Wasting away is more like it, but there's no one around to split hairs over it.

He showers again, more out of the obscure hope that there'll be another promise of hope on the mirror than out of any particular desire to be clean. There's no message waiting when he climbs out, and Sam is surprised to realize he's still capable of being disappointed. Life is just full of surprises.

--

The sight of the Impala, driver-less and silent almost makes him turn right back around and crawl back into bed. But the spark of motivation has already turned to an ember and smolders quietly somewhere deep down. His stomach rumbles. Sam takes a deep breath and opens the driver's side door.

Halfway to the diner, the radio turns itself on. Kansas blares, deafening and epic. Sam nearly jumps out of his own skin, and barely manages to keep the car on the road.

_Carry on my wayward son..._

For some reason, Sam can't bring himself to turn it off.

--

Another week (_day eighty-seven_, some masochistic part of him whispers) and the motel owner kicks him out. He's out of money, out of options. For the first time in his life, Sam realizes that he's homeless. He's known it for a long time, sure, but Dean had always felt like home to Sam. Without him, it's just a motel room and he's just an orphan with no place to go.

With sixty-two dollars in his pocket, he finds the highway.

He's down to fifty and passing a _NEXT EXIT: 2 MILES_ sign when the car starts to make a rattling noise, deep in the bowels of the engine. Sam swears, wondering vaguely, when it was that he remembered how to care. The radio turns itself on again - the Rolling Stones this time.

_You know, remember that rubber-legged boy?  
Mama cookin' chicken fried and bacon grease  
Come on along boys it's just down the road apiece  
Well there's a place you really get your kicks  
It's open every night about twelve to six_

With a shiver, Sam realizes that it isn't he who'd changed the cassette.

--

Off the exit, he finds a bar with relative ease. The fact that the song ends just as he parks isn't lost on him. Sam hasn't believed in coincidences in a very long time.

Inside is like every other bar they've ever been in, excepting the fact that there is no more _they_. Sam crosses the threshold painfully alone.

He puts his last fifty dollars down on the green-felted corner of the pool table. He finds it surprisingly easy to fake it. Sheepish grin hiding hard, calculating eyes. Line up the shot, _crack_, bounce, drop. One by one, he sinks his shots and remembers a time when he'd read books at a bar, instead of playing pool.

Near the end of his third game something peculiar happens. He's playing a guy that maybe he shouldn't be trying to hustle. Dean could have taken him though, and sometimes, Sam forgets that they're not the same person. Regardless, it's looking like he's going to loose, and not just because it's part of the act. They're down to the bare bones of the game. Three balls left on the table and two of them are Sam's. The guy lines up his shot on the eight-ball and Sam cringes.

He could make that shot with two broken arms.

Sam's already digging into his wallet to settle his debt when white collides into black. The eight goes wide, spinning off at an angle and taps one of Sam's stripes into the corner pocket. Sam stares, knowing just as well as the guy that there's no logical way that could have happened. It's simple geometry; the eight _should_ have gone in. There's no viable explanation as to why it hasn't and Sam won't allow himself to consider or acknowledge the whispers echoing up from somewhere in his chest.

He bends to the table and sinks his ball and then the eight, easy as breathing. Easier, maybe. Breathing is kinda hard these days.

When he walks out of the bar a few hours later, he's quadrupled his original fifty. He rubs the worn bills between his fingers, considering their worth in the grand scheme of things, and wonders if maybe this is how Dean had felt when Sam left for college.

Sam almost wishes he'd never gone.

--

The whispers rise to a constant in his ear, and become the only comfort Sam has left to him. Sometimes, he can imagine the warm weight of a heavy hand on his shoulder - nothing more than a reassuring touch. When he thinks about how crazy it is, the whispers stop, the touch leaves. Sam tries not to think about how crazy it is anymore.

He doesn't bother with motels anymore either, just parks wherever he happens to find himself when he's too tired to drive any further. The back seat of the Impala is cramped, but it's better than a motel room. Better than accidentally asking for a double out of habit and then having to stare at the empty bed all night, wishing for a warm body to fill it. Sam only makes that mistake once.

He doesn't know where he's going. The blacktop stretches ahead of him, a thin ribbon of empty destinations, all as pointless as the next. All Sam knows is that he wants to drop off the radar, lose himself in the open road and gas-station Americana. Late night diners, dark bars filled with strangers as lonely as the next; Dean's life. Sam doesn't know what to do with it.

The messages build up on his phone. And Dean's. Bobby, Ellen, Missouri. A half-dozen other contacts that survived the demon armageddon. Sam ignores them all, still can't bear to form the words _Dean's dead_ in his mind, let alone his throat. They deserve to know, but it's too much to ask of Sam right now.

He lets the batteries in both phones die and doesn't bother to recharge them. The Impala grumbles quietly over the road, and even she seems to have lost her enthusiasm for the open highway. She whines now, where she used to purr when Dean was behind the wheel. She sounds as old as she is, all the long miles of driving back and forth across the country, squealing around corners at speeds too fast, being sideswiped by a freakin' _semi_ - they're all catching up to her as swiftly as they're catching up to Sam.

It's been a long time and a long road and he's tired. The map holds no destinations, and Sam wonders if it ever has at all.

--

He stops at a campground and gets quarters from the girl behind the counter in the snack bar and gift shop. She smiles brightly at him, and Sam can tell she's trying to catch his eye, but he just forks over a few crumpled bills and receives a handful of change in return, eyes downcast the entire time.

Public showers. Three minutes per quarter. Sam's no stranger to the pay-by-the-drop system. He dumps them all in the slot, one by one, and the water stays hot right up until the very end.

First shower in a week. The grime slides away like an extra skin. Dirt and sweat and filth from rest-stop bathrooms and life on the road. Sam doesn't even realize how badly he's been craving a shower until he steps under the spray. Comforts he used to take for granted don't even really register anymore. He has no one to impress, and no one cares if he puts his muddy boots on the fine leather of the Impala's seats.

Even Dean's bitching is wishful thinking, now.

But the shower is good, and Sam will take whatever small comforts are left to him, so he relishes it until the digital timer starts blinking red, counting down his last few seconds of hot water. When the spray stops, he climbs out, dresses himself and returns to the only home he has left; the front seat of the Impala.

He watches a few cars pull in and out of the gravel driveway and gets lost in his contemplation of the couples and families that make their way across the porch that runs along the length of the store that also serves as the restaurant and office for the campground. It's not long before the people are just motion and Sam is lost in his own world of thoughts.

He thinks about what he's doing; driving aimlessly, wasting away whatever time he has left, lost, confused. He's forgotten his purpose.

He tries to remember the things he used to want. School, a future, a wife, kids. And then... revenge, even if it meant he had to die to get it. Then he'd spent a night pinned up against a cabin wall and watched his brother bare his soul unwillingly and break apart, and the only thing he'd wanted then was to prove the demon wrong. He'd wanted his brother to live and he'd wanted to show Dean that it wasn't true. He did need Dean.

As is pretty fucking obvious right about now.

Sam looks at himself and finds that he's a mess, and realizes just how much he's needed Dean, all these years.

So what now? Dean is gone (God, even thinking it is like suffocating) and Sam can't keep going like this. An urban nomad - no destination, no home. But the Roma were all about family and Sam has none left, so something's gotta give before Sam runs right off the road.

It's a simple matter of weighing the options. He can go back to school. He can keep hunting. He can just keep going until he runs out of gas and scrape whatever living he can manage wherever he ends up. He can find the nearest crossroads and do something stupid. He can pick up the damn phone and ask his friends for help.

The last option gets crossed off the list before Sam even finishes the thought. He's a Winchester, and they just don't work like that.

There's a tap on his window and Sam starts, remembering that he's still in the parking lot. He wonders how long he's been sitting there. He looks up, and sees the girl from the store, looking shy, but kind. He rolls down his window and she pushes a styrofoam container through it, towards him.

"It's just a burger and some fries, but you looked hungry," she says, waving it at him until he accepts it. She half smiles, one corner of her mouth quirking up and she pushes a few strands of her black hair back behind her ear. Something glints in the sunlight. Sam sees that she's wearing a ring on the third finger of her right hand; a simple silver band. His heart aches for this girl who is not his brother; and for his brother, who is not this girl.

"I like your car," she says, awkwardly, after a moment, when her kindness receives no reaction of any sort from Sam except a blank stare. Starting again, for the second time in as many minutes, Sam pries his eyes away from her hand and dredges up a smile.

"It's my brother's," he responds, automatically. He doesn't think about how that's not even true anymore. The Impala is his, now. _His._

Car like that, doesn't fit Sam at all.

In all the ways that matter, it's still Dean's car.

"Joyride?" She looks amused.

"Something like that," he mutters, wishing she'd just leave already. She's cute, really, but Sam doesn't want her burger or her kindness. He doesn't want to have to think about the Impala being his or about what Dean would have done to him if he'd ever taken his car on a honest-to-god joyride.

"Don't see many cars like that around here," she remarks, and Sam has time to realize that he doesn't even know where here is.

She winks. Fucking _winks. _

The radio blares, unexpected and obtrusive. The girl jumps visibly at the sudden excess of noise and Sam's heart jumps as AC/DC filters through the speakers.  
_  
I don't know what your name is  
I don't know what your game is  
I want to taste you tonight  
Animal appetite  
'Cause I'm a love hungry man  
I'm a love hungry man_

Scowling, Sam jabs at the eject button. The tape pops out and he turns the knob to off for good measure. He offers the girl an apologetic look.

"Does it all the time, stupid old thing," he mutters, but not without affection for the one object that is still a constant in his life. Sam and this car; Dean's most prized possessions, the only ones left.

She nods, accepting his explanation readily enough. "So where are you headed?"

For her kindness, Sam figures the least he owes her is a bit of honesty.

"Not sure, truthfully."

Sam decides it's high time he figured it out.

--

Ironically, Dean really shouldn't have worried so much about Sam leaving to go back to school. His brother had always been afraid it would happen, whether sooner or later. As it turns out, it's not even an option anymore.

At the time, Sam had only been obtusely aware of the repercussions associated with being involved in a bank robbery, not to mention spending time in a state penitentiary. Sam's law career was effectively over before it had even gotten a chance to truly begin.

Or any sort of career whatsoever, he realizes with a mute sort of indifference. The normal world has nothing left to offer him, except maybe a prison cell.

But hunting?

Sam has always been the reluctant one of the family. Even moreso now, when circumstance and fate seem to be rallying together to bully towards a destiny he doesn't understand. (Because he's already accepted that this is much bigger than him, or the yellow-eyed demon. The big-bad was just one of many. Sam is just one of many.) Or desire.

Before, he'd stayed because of Dean. His brother's enthusiasm for the job somehow making it okay, even kind of fun, when he stopped worrying enough to realize just exactly, how friggin' _weird_ their lives were.

_Were._

That's right. Because Dean's not here anymore. Occupational hazard and all.

He laughs; because it's easier than crying and his throat cracks at the sound, an aborted, humorless abomination. Quite suddenly, Sam is furious. Spitting rage and malice and no outlet for his aggression.

He's incensed at the unfairness of it all. Because the one thing he has never wanted, has always tried to get away from is the only thing he has left. God is is one sick fuck.

With no where else to turn, no one to lash out at, he hits the road. God bless America for miles upon miles of straight-open, deserted, three A.M. highway.

There's no thinking involved, at first. Just the pedal under his foot, his fingers curled around the steering wheel. He hunches his shoulders and pushes the Impala a little harder, opens her up and lets her go. It feels good - fast and reckless and daring.

But no matter how fast he drives, he still can't get away from his own brain.

He's lost. Lost and floundering.

The speedometer claws its way higher and higher and his anger follows suit, raging beneath the surface, threatening to overwhelm him. Sam's foot pushes heavy and unrelenting on the pedal.

Nothing left to lose, nothing left to gain. Sam grinds his teeth as one part of him screams _why the fuck not?_ and the frightened little boy who's lost his only shelter from the world begs _please, no more pain. Why not just stop?_

And somewhere deep and twisted and unforgiving, comes a rank, fetid whisper. _Because you deserve that pain. You didn't save him._

Sam grips the steering wheel until his knuckles go white and flattens the pedal to the floor, the Impala roaring to life in his ears and all around him. Sleek and alive, she devours the road; was _made_ to be ridden hard and put away wet. And she's just as lonely and bitter as Sam. Together, they race through the night, silent at first, except the growl of the engine, fierce and angry.

"Just tell me what to _do_," Sam cries. He's shouting, but his words seem small, lost to the wind and the motor.

Sam gets his answer near dawn, when he runs out of gas and pulls off the next exit to refuel the Impala. When he goes inside to pay, he spots a paper, announcing that a local man was in the hospital after a vicious animal attack. Taking it for the sign that it is, Sam throws an extra dollar down on the counter, grabs a paper and stalks out, refusing to acknowledge that his hands are trembling, just ever so slightly.

--

It's a shitsplat of a town, somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania. Just off of Route 61, as luck would have it. Population, practically zilch. No wonder animal attacks are making the front page of the paper.

Sam does some sleuthing around, halfhearted and clumsy as it is. It's like trying to play soccer while missing an arm - still possible, but your balance is FUBAR and it's difficult not to overcompensate for the loss. No one to play good cop, bad cop with. No one to drag him away when the locals get too chatty. Sam ends up talking to an old lady for nearly an hour about her precious cats Patches and Snowball, who have both gone missing.

In the end, Sam visits the man in the hospital, claiming to be a cryptozoologist, interested in identifying the creature that attacked him. When Sam questions the man, he's reluctant at first. He's worried that his account will sound crazy and inside, Sam is howling with laughter over the fact that this man isn't half as crazy as Sam feels, right then. But eventually, with reassurances and a smile Sam doesn't feel, the man cracks.

"I didn't think much of it at first, you know," his dry laugh turns quickly to a hacking cough and out of instinct or practice, Sam moves quickly to his side, helping him to sit up and pushing a glass of water from the bedside table into his hands; remembering the countless times he's done the same thing for Dean.

"Thanks," the guy says when his coughs subside. He swallows a few more sips of water before he continues. "One of my dogs went missing. Blue tick - good breeding. Good dog. But you know, sometime they just get out of the pen and run off, or someone mighta stolen him. Purebred and all; worth some money. But then a couple of my neighbors said they had dogs that disappeared. Cats too."

He pauses, eyes flitting sideways to gage Sam's expression. Sam is careful to keep it neutral - professionally interested. Satisfied, that he's not here to poke fun, the man continues.

"So I start thinking maybe a wild animal; cougar or bear. The dogs were restless, barking at all hours of the night, so I figured something must be out there, to get them riled up like that. Howling like they was on a fox trail. So I'd go out to check on em, and there was never nothing there. And then one night, I hear fighting out there, real vicious like. And I never _heard_ screams like that before."

He shudders, face drawn and pale at the memory. Sam smiles apologetically and indicates that he should continue.

"Well, then I heard yelping, and my dogs don't yelp, so I grabbed my gun and ran outside. And...and I never seen anything like it before."

"Not a bear or a cougar, I take it?" Sam encourages. The man is starting to look reluctant again. And this is about the point there Dean would make some inappropriate joke and Sam would tell him to shut up and then the man would be ready to tell Sam anything he wants to know. It's harder to buy Sam's sincerity without the skepticism sitting right there beside him.

"Well, first thing I noticed is that another of my dogs was gone. No trace of him anywhere, but then I saw something in the pen, so I turned the floodlights on and there was blood all over the ground, and Jasper – my best dog, mind you. Nose like a bloodhound - was lying there bleeding bad, skin practically torn off his bones. And this...thing standing above him, making those screaming noises."

"And what did it look like?" Sam prompts, knowing he's hit paydirt.

"It was all black, with fur sticking up along it's back. Big, but too small to be a bear. And there ain't no wolves in Pennsylvania. Too big to be a wolf, anyways, but it kinda looked like one. Meaner, though. Wolves ain't like that. Not unless they're rabid." The man pauses and seems to realize that he's gotten off track. The corners of his mouth turn up sheepishly before he redirects his train of thought.

"I could see its teeth - HUGE teeth, and claws to match. I knew right away that this was the thing that's been making the dogs go missing. The way it carved up poor Jasper..." he pauses and scrubs a hand across his face, taking a minute to compose himself. "Thing I remember most though, was its tail. Giant tail - longer by half than the rest of the bastard's whole body. When I hit the lights, it looked up at me with these great yellow eyes, and I knew it was evil, just by looking."

"So what happened?" The man doesn't need any encouragement anymore. At some point, they all break and it all comes flooding back out, unable to hold the crazy thoughts inside any longer. Sam just needs to prod him in the right direction.

"Well, it looked at me and made that screaming noise again, and then it broke through the fence – musta climbed it to get in - and came straight towards me. I shot at it, but it didn't even flinch. What kind of animal can't be hurt by bullets? I figured I must've missed it. So I go to fire again, but it was already on top of me. I didn't know what to do - breath was horrible, and those claws were so sharp."

He stops there, wide eyes and pulls up his shirt, peeling back a bandage that covers practically half his side. Sam can see long, neat rows of stitches marching across the man's flesh.

"Ever seen anything that could do _that_ before?" he asks.

"Can't say that I have," Sam concedes. _But I've seen things that can do far worse_. "So how did you get away?"

"Well, lucky for me, I was still right near the porch, and I didn't drop my shotgun, so I smashed him in the side of the head and he backed off, kinda stunned, right? So I jumped up, bleeding everywhere, and got up on the porch and got one of my hunting knives that I'd left out there for cleaning – nice one, too, made of silver - and I turn around and it was almost on top of me again. I threw myself out of the way this time, and on it's way by, I grabbed hold of that big tail of his. I didn't really think, just wanted to hurt it, so I cut its tail off, and it started screaming louder than ever."

"You cut its tail off?" Sam interjects. This could be important. The man nods.

"Left it on the porch, in the bottom drawer of my toolbox. Figured the authorities might wanna see it."

"So after it started screaming?"

"Well, that set the dogs off again, and the fence was broken, so they come running and chased it off, only, when they came back, one of my other dogs – Fitch - wasn't with 'em. And I heard my neighbor lost another dog last night. So whatever it was, it's still out there."

The man bites his lip, as if he has something more to say, but doesn't want to say it.

"Luckily, my neighbor heard the racket and came to see what was wrong and brought me to the hospital."

"That's quite an ordeal," Sam says, sympathetically, "You've been very helpful, but it's very important that we have all the facts. Is there anything else you can remember?"

"Tell me this," the man says, slowly, hesitantly. His voice drops lower, looking at Sam with such intensity, Sam feels like he's underneath a microscope. "Any animal you've ever seen know how to talk?"

"It talked to you?" Sam asks, startled, already crossing a few things off his mental list of possible creatures.

"Just before the dogs ran him off, he said, 'four gone. I'll be back.' whatever that means." He shrugs, as if it's no big deal, as if it's just crazy talk. But the fear in his eyes gives him away. "Never heard a voice like that before. Creepy."

"Well, trust me, sir, it won't be back. My financial backers are very keen on identifying and capturing the animal for study," Sam says, resolutely. He's heard enough. He shakes the man's hand and thanks him for his time.

--

The only research Sam does is to find the address of the man's house. The rest doesn't matter. He knows how to kill it, already; the man gave him all the clues he needs. Said his knife was silver.

Sam finds silver bullets in the trunk and loads his gun, shoves a few more in his pocket for good measure. He finds a silver knife too – an old ornate thing he and Dean had used for a banishment ritual last year – but still sharp.

The cabin is deserted when he reaches it, and Sam realizes that the incident must have been recent. There's still blood all over the ground, flies buzzing around a barely recognizable corpse of a dog. Sam wrinkles his nose at the smell and turns away from the sight, heading for the porch.

There's more blood there, and the knife the man had mentioned, still dark with blood, bits of black fur clinging to the blade. He's not interested in the knife, however, and drops it back onto the floor with a clatter, heading towards the bright red toolbox a few feet away.

Drawing a deep breath, he pulls the bottom drawer open. Eyes wide, he pulls out the tail. God, that guy hadn't been kidding. It's _massive_. Sam holds it up at shoulder height and the tip still brushes through the dust on the floor. It's thick and heavy in his grip, the end caked with dried blood. Trying not to think about it, he throws the thing in a garbage bag and ties it off before shoving it into his backpack.

It's starting to get dark, now, and Sam lingers on the porch indecisively. He can't decide if it would be better to wait here to see if the thing returns or actually go out looking for it. Either way is a risk, without backup, and either way there's a chance he's wrong and the silver won't work or he won't even find the thing at all.

And Dean's not here. Christ, what the hell is he _doing?_ It's stupid and reckless and all Sam can think is _Dean's not here_.

He shouldn't be here either. He knows it down to his bones. Not like this. Not with his head in this place, not without back up, not without checking to be sure. But then again, maybe that's the point. He doesn't care to dwell on it, because if he thinks it, he'll realize how utterly pathetic he's become.

And he's got a job to do.

--

He decides to check out the attack scene a bit more. Ducking beneath the yellow line of police tape, he circles the corpse of the late Jasper, eying it critically. He can see bone poking through the tears in the flesh and there's no face left to speak of.

The fence is in similar shape; not just a hole or a break. It's been knocked down completely, the chainlink bent and distorted at the point where the creature must have barreled into it. From the sound of it, the thing is fast. Sam makes a note to be on guard and not let it scare him into running. He spots heavy paw-tracks in the dirt. Measuring the length of the stride and keeping the man's account in mind, he comes up with a running speed that just about makes his head spin. One thing's for sure. He won't stand a chance in a footrace.

Best to wait here and see if it shows, then. The woods will only work to the creature's obvious advantage and here, there's at least people nearby to hear the commotion and a phone inside if something goes wrong.

After a couple hours, Sam's patience – normally elongated by friendly banter with Dean – is dried up. He breeches the tree line at the edge of the yard and blends seamlessly with the trees, swallowed by the dark.

He's gone maybe half a mile when he hears thrashing in the bushes and a lilting scream that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He knows he's found his query, and the fact that it's not even bothering with the element of surprise _isn't_ a good thing. Whatever it is, is obviously either too confident or too pissed off to care, and it's heading right in Sam's direction.

Sam stops moving. He drops to the forest floor and flicks off the safety on his gun, leveling it in the direction from which the scream had come. He waits for five minutes, then ten - the crashing in the bushes growing louder, the howls replaced by a lower, more sinister noise. Almost a moaning sound, mixed with snarls and growls.

At long last, he sees the underbrush tremble and give way to reveal the creature the man had described, but no verbal depiction could have ever prepared anyone for the grotesque sight the beast makes, when face to face.

It's barely visible in the dark, scarcely more than a menacing outline. Its ears are pointed atop its skull, flicking back and forth - listening. Likewise, it's nostrils quiver, testing the air for foreign scents. Bright yellow, intelligent eyes scan the surrounding area. Sam's sure it knows he's here.

Its fur is thick, but beneath it, Sam can see that it's all muscle, no fat. Shoulders hunched, body tucked low to the ground, its lips are curled back to reveal teeth, long and sharp and deadly. Its paws are huge and catlike - dexterous and jointed, ending in impressive talons. Sam imagines its ability to dig in and hold on and shudders, wondering how that man had ever gotten away from this thing.

Sam marvels at the fact that it still has a good six inches or so of its tail left - a raw, bloody stump that lashes back and forth as if it has still not grown used to being without the rest of its length. Sam watches as it sniffs the air, eyes flashing before turning, without hesitation, towards Sam.

"You have it," the creature snarls, stalking forward. "Give it back."

Sam hesitates for only a fraction of a second before firing. The bullet hits the creature in its left eye, a fine spray of blood flying off in all directions. The beast screams, flinching away for a moment, before turning back, all rage and sinew and _Goddamn_, it's fast. 

Sam doesn't have time to aim again – the heart, goddammit, the heart - before the creature is on top of him, pinning him down into the dirt, teeth bare inches from his face, fetid breath raising bile in Sam's throat. "Mine," it hisses, claws hooking into Sam's shoulder, keeping him pinned, keeping him from moving. Sam grunts, feeling the talons dig deeper into his flesh as the animal shakes him like a rag doll.

"Give it back," it moans again. The voice would almost be pitiful, if it weren't so heart-stoppingly eerie. A low rasp that digs right down into Sam's bones and sends shivers up his spine at the sound of it. "Mine. Mine. Where's my tailypo?"

Like picking a lock, the tumblers fall into place and the door of realization pops open. He remembers hiding beneath the covers as a child, shivering and frightened in the dark, until his restlessness had awakened Dean. He remembers admitting reluctantly to Dean about the story his teacher had read to them on Halloween, the week before, about the tailypo. Angry at the loss of his tail, driven away and coming back again and again until there were no more defenses for the poor old man in the story.

Dean had laughed and assured Sam that real monsters were much easier to kill than that.

Sam's not so sure now. He can feel the tailypo's hot breath on his neck, blood from its ruined eye dripping down onto his face, sticky and warm. The thing's weight bears down on him, making it hard to even breathe. He's alive for only one reason. He has what it wants, and that alone stays its claws from tearing Sam into ribbons.

Sam wishes for the millionth time that Dean was here. That way he could rub the creature's existence in his brother's face. Or, you know, so Dean could save his little brother's sorry ass, for the millionth time.

"Give it back." The beast intones, once again, peering down at Sam. "Where is it? Mine."

"You want it?" Sam asks, thinking quickly. He holds the beast's unnerving gaze and shifts as best he can, hissing at the burning pain in his shoulder. If he can just...got it! He slides the knife out of his boot and raises it up, slashing it across the tailypo's face, hoping to blind it.

It screams again, right in Sam's ear and he cringes at the cacophony, but stabs at the black beast again. This time, it stumbles back, spitting and raging. Sam rolls over, too unsure of his own strength to attempt standing right then, and scrambles to his hands and knees.

His shoulder aches in protest, and Sam can feel the blood running down his arm, soaking his shirt, but there's no time for that now. He dives for his backpack, tearing open the zipper and using the knife to slice through the stubborn plastic of the garbage bag. Prize in hand, he rises to his feet and turns to face the creature.

"This what you want?" he asks, and holds the tail aloft, eyes bouncing between the look of recognition that seeps into the one eye it has left and the forest floor. Dammit, where did he drop the gun? He sees the muscles bunch and tense beneath the tailypo's fur and the thing crouches lower, defensively. Sam's fingers tighten around the handle of his knife – the only weapon left to him. The gun is lost somewhere in the dark and there's no time to look for it.

"Mine," the creature wails. "Give it back. Give it back."

"Come and get it," Sam hisses, his smile broad and reckless. There's nothing funny about this, but he wants to laugh at this creature who isn't supposed to be real. Wants to laugh until it can to nothing but turn and run from the sound. He's baiting it, waiting for it to come closer. He wants to kill it, make it feel agony, feel it die by his hand. He wants it to suffer.

But perhaps there's more to the creature than brawn. Quite suddenly, its eyes shine with a different sort of light, and it cocks its head, maw curling up into a sinister grin. "Dead, but not gone," it says in almost a sing-song tone. "Following you. Dead but not gone. Why don't you listen to him?"

Sam's veins run cold at the words. He remembers a time that was not so long ago, but seems a lifetime away, when he was on an airplane and a demon assaulted him with words designed to stun and hurt. _I know what happened to your girlfriend_. Breath hitching, his grip on the tail falters fractionally as the words echo in his brain. But then the creature is back to its usual litany, "Give it back, give it back."

Still shaken, heart fluttering like a caged bird, he lets the hand holding the appendage aloft drop, just slightly. And, seeing it as weakness, the creature takes its opportunity and charges. Instead of fleeing, however, Sam steps forward to meet the beast head on, not giving it time to accelerate to full speed. He thrusts out the knife in front of him and the creature impales itself on the blade before it can stop itself.

With a vicious shove, followed by a twist, the tailypo's spine arches, a final, ethereal scream raising up into the dark canopy of the trees before dying to a strangled, throaty gurgle. Sam stabs it a few more times, just to be sure, and it writhes, knife still stuck in its chest as it twists away from Sam. It collapses into the underbrush with a heavy thud and goes still.

Sam huffs out a heavy breath of relief, wincing at the pull of torn flesh in his shoulder. He'll need stitches, probably, and he's not sure how he'll pull that one off. For the moment, he's still reeling with adrenaline, not really feeling the wounds, aside from stretched discomfort. Bending down, he pulls the knife free of the tailypo's chest, wiping the blade clean on his jeans.

He stares at its unmoving corpse a moment longer, not really sure how he's feeling, except a bit ill. But there's still work to do. He shakes himself, mentally, and retrieves his backpack from the bushes. He fishes out the tin of lighter fluid and douses the corpse. The match flares, tiny and brittle in his fingers, and then drops, catches, and the whole thing goes up in flames.

The body crackles, burning fur and flesh reeking in Sam's nostrils and he feels a tickle start somewhere in his stomach, growing and building to an inescapable pressure until it bubbles up, laughter spilling over, loud and mirthless and frightening.

He watches the corpse burn down to charcoal, bone, teeth, and ash. He laughs the entire time and doesn't know why.

--

When it comes down to it, Sam doesn't really remember the hike back to the car, or exactly, how he ends up an hour down the road, at the nearest motel. He doesn't remember what lie he tells the clerk to keep him from calling an ambulance when he sees the blood stains on Sam's clothes. He doesn't remember sewing himself back together – a hack job, his most pathetic work to date and he knows, unequivocally that he'll regret it in the morning, that they'll probably pull themselves out in the night, that he'll have wretched scars, but he can't bring himself to care.

Really, the only thing Sam remembers with any sort of clarity is the abrasive rasp of the tailypo's voice, words that Sam never wanted to hear, doesn't want to think about now. _Following you. Dead but not gone. Why don't you listen to him?_

He lies in the bed nearest to the door – two again, Christ – and stares up at the ceiling. He's too wound up to sleep, shoulder settling into an acute pain that sets Sam's stomach to churning. His mind is racing, ears filled with the whispers that were once easy to ignore. Before, he could pretend they were just in his mind, only his subconcious offering his waking self what little comfort it could in the only way it could fathom. But creatures of the dark hinted that there is something more and now Sam can't get the idea out of his head.

His mind reels at the very concept, pain and guilt as intense as the night Dean had... Well, vivid and unbearable. Enough said. Now, Sam has to believe it, even if he doesn't want to, and _God_ he doesn't.

If the whispers are real, then the radio isn't just a strange quirk of his brother's beloved car, and the pool ball wasn't a fluke, and the newspaper wasn't a coincidence, and the writing on the mirror...

Sam stops thinking. He _can't_ think about it, because if he does, the hope will consume him and the guilt will drown him and it's just all too much. He reaches across his chest and prods at the bandages covering up his poorly treated wounds and rides the mindless wave of pain that washes over him all the way into unconsciousness.

--

Three weeks later, Sam narrowly avoids being impaled by a unicorn. Turns out, they're not quite as friendly as all the lore makes them out to be. In actuality, they have a keen taste for the flesh of virgins and don't take too kindly to people who wander into their territory – whether by accident or on purpose.

It's hard to kill something that's so misleadingly beautiful, but the fact that it's trying to trample and gore him to death is good enough incentive for Sam. He beheads it with an ax and the corpse dissolves into nothing before Sam has a chance to burn it.

Only later does it occur to him that perhaps only Dean's blatant disbelief - of both the tailypo and unicorns - is what kept them from ever finding evidence of their existence before. Sam tries not to think about what that means in relation to the whispers that are growing stronger by the day. It's hard enough, already, to keep telling himself it's all in his head.

When he thinks that clinging to that belief is what keeps the whispers from becoming more...

Sam _really_ doesn't think about that.

--

In his dreams, he's helpless to escape his subconscious. It's like the time after Jess all over again. Except this time, there's no Dean to shake him awake when things get too bad. Instead of fire and dripping blood and _why, Sam?_, there's a great black shadow and putrid breath and _Dead but not gone. Why don't you listen to him?_

On the worst nights, it's Dean haunting his dreams, eyes full of sorrow and hurt and disappointment. The only thing he'll say is _What are you doing, Sam?_ And Sam never, never has an answer.

--

The tape in the radio changes every time Sam leaves the car, now. Lights flicker in any room he walks into. He hasn't lost a game of pool in months, and not just because he's getting better at hustling. Sometimes, he thinks he hears what sounds like rats scratching in the trunk of the Impala.

It's getting really, really hard to ignore.

He slides back into the life of a hunter like a runner stealing home. He's brash and reckless and bullheaded. Shoot first, ask questions later. Where he used to spend _days_, sometimes, preparing for a hunt, now he spends mere minutes or hours - as little time as he can get away with. He can't stand to sit still anymore. When he does that, the whispers grow into a murmur; and even though there's no discernible words – thank God – the voice is a familiar baritone that makes Sam's jaw clench and his eyes sting.

--

A month later, things come to a head, and despite all of his not-thinking, Sam figures it out.

The month has been filled with chaos and too many near-death experiences to count. It's filled with a barrage of monsters – some familiar, some new - all of them more dangerous than the last. Sam doesn't know how he's not dead yet, except that maybe it's because there's some massive cosmic joke being played on him.

Other times, he thinks it's because there's someone looking out for him after all.

He gets his answer the night of the full moon. He's been tracking a werewolf in Cleavland for the past two nights now, desperately pushing back all the painful memories associated with the creatures. For the first time, he's glad he's not in California. That would just be salt in the wounds.

After a night of chasing the thing to Hell and back, through alleys and streets and even one particularly exhausting trip up a fifteen story fire escape and then back down the other side, Sam finally manages to corner the wolf in a dead end alley.

Finally, the thing stops running and turns instead to fight, teeth bared and eyes flashing. Sam's heart aches as he raises his gun, but he doesn't hesitate. The werewolf dodges the first bullet, and the second shot goes wide. He takes a breath to steady his nerves and lines up his shot carefully this time.

Except the gun jams and Sam curses at his luck and his haste. If he had been thinking, he would have brought another gun as backup for this exact situation. But he hasn't been doing much thinking as of late, and the werewolf isn't too enthused about being on the endangered species list. It lunges forward and Sam finds himself thinking _this is it_ followed by _finally_, which surprises him.

What surprises him more is that it is _not_ it.

At the last second, when Sam expects to feel teeth at his throat, expects to breathe his last and be done with it all, he instead feels a forceful shove and goes sprawling sideways. He hits the pavement hard and sees stars. When he he manages to right himself, the werewolf has taken its opportunity and fled the scene. Sam sees no one that could have pushed him out of the way like that.

And right there, he knows three things.

One; he's spent the last two months _trying_ to get himself killed. Two; the only reason he hasn't succeeded is that his brother's _ghost_ has protected him. Three; he is, without a doubt, the world's biggest screw-up.

He makes it as far as the Impala before he loses it. Sinking down onto the seats, he smells grease and sweat and leather – all things that scream _lived in_, because essentially, he does live here. But it never seemed that way with Dean. His brother always kept the interior clean, bitching at Sam if he so much as dropped a skittle. Now, the back is littered with burger wrappers and empty bottles of Jack, papers and dirty socks.

Sam realizes, belatedly, that the last place on Earth that had been unquestionably his brother's is no longer so. And that's all it takes for him to slump against the steering wheel, sobs catching in his throat before wrestling free to fill up all that empty space.

"God, Dean," he says, speaking because he can't bear to hold it in anymore, and because he knows, now that his brother has been listening all along. "I don't know what I'm doing."

He buries his face deeper into the crooks of his arms and feels a warm, solid weight across his shoulders. This time, he leans into the touch, accepts it for what it is, and realizes exactly how much he's missed it.   



End file.
